Quebec to tap private investors for toll road project

The transportation minister for the Canadian province of Quebec
has received four responses to the government's request for proposals to
design, build and maintain a toll road in the Montreal area.

The government sought the proposals as part of a plan to
extend Autoroute 30 to bypass Montreal on the
south side of the St. Lawrence River by 2009.

A press release issued in late 2006 by the Quebec
Transportation Ministry stated the project would indeed be a toll road. A
follow-up release last week stated that the road will be funded and built
through a public-private partnership.

Some of the companies on the list of potential bidders are
familiar to Land Line readers,
because they already operate and maintain U.S. toll roads such as the Chicago
Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road.

One of the proposals submitted for the Quebec
road came from a consortium called Infras-Quebec A-30, which is composed of
Macquarie Infrastructure Group of Australia and a handful of Canadian
companies. Macquarie is half of the investment
consortium that leased the Indiana
Toll Road in 2006.

The other half of the consortium involved in the Indiana deal - Cintra Concessiones de Infraestructuras de
Transporte of Spain - also
submitted a proposal to build the Quebec
project under the name Consortium Autoroutes du Quebec.

Cintra and Macquarie are already known in Canada for their majority control of the 407 Express Toll Route
in Toronto in the neighboring province of Ontario.

The third firm that submitted a proposal for the Quebec project is
SNC-Lavelin, a Canadian-based company with a minority interest in the 407 ETR.

The fourth potential bidder for the Autoroute 30 extension
is called Nouvelle Autoroute 30, which includes the Spanish companies of
Acciona S.A.
and Iridium Concessiones de Infraestructuras S.A. as the main partners.

Requests for proposals for the Quebec project were due Jan. 17.

Quebec Transportation Ministry officials will go through
several steps to review the proposals before approving a public-private
partnership.
Quebec
allows such partnerships under provincial law with legislative approval.